“When I was a girl, I dreamed of love.” The words reverberate through everything like water flowing in a sealed container. Motion with no endpoint.
I’m in this strange darkness. A figure takes shape before me. At first it’s white, then it solidifies into her. The hero. Olexandrya. She’s naked before me, but her body is hazy. I can only make out the shape of her and that jagged scar on her chest.
In her hands is a brilliant ball of white.
“A love I could never really picture. Like in movies, you know?” I don’t know what she’s talking about. But I see it anyway.
The dark changes. I see a box shrouded in black. On it are moving colors that I struggle to process. Noises emanate from within: laughter and music. It’s gone as fast as it appeared.
“Sorry,” Olexandrya says. “In the world I come from, we had these pictures you could watch, and they moved and told stories.”
“Where are we?” I demand. “What’s going on?”
Olexandrya draws closer, the dark shifting behind her.
“I never had love where I came from. I died alone. A victim in a war I didn’t even know the first thing about. Masked murderers stormed my city. It’s hazy now. But I’ll never forget. Thunder fired from their hands… weapons. Bodies torn apart.”
It happens again. I see snow stained red. Bodies moving, each wielding what look like black spears.
“Wait!” a girl screams. “Please!”
One of the figures turns, and the spear flashes. Thunder rumbles around us as the image fades.
I can’t move. I look down, finding my body. Below me is more nothing. My hands are clasped together before me.
There’s a red line on my chest. It stretches from my collarbone and ends halfway down my ribs. I’m viscerally reminded of my body. The blade I’m currently impaled on.
This isn’t real. It must have something to do with the soul.
“Pay attention, would you?” Olexandrya says. “I’m telling you important stuff.”
I eye the white in her hands. Is that her soul? The piece of her soul within me? Is this how the Soul Carver functions? Has she already taken the soul back?
“I don’t care about your love,” I say. “I don’t care about your home or your moving stories. Why won’t you just let me die?”
Olexandrya’s expression softens.
The red line on my chest thickens.
“Because.” The word lingers in the air. “I’ve seen your love.” The white in her hand flutters, pulsing like a weakening flame.
The world changes again. Golden flames rising like pillars around us. In the distance, I see something. A figure wreathed within them, wielding a blazing sword.
Within the flames are more images. A girl with black hair standing in front of some kind of reflective wall. I don’t recognize her, but something about her eyes tells me it’s Olexandrya. Massive buildings made of stone that pierce a gray sky. Strange boxes moving and painting each other in red light. People wearing strange clothes, their faces aimed at the snowy ground.
“You speak of my love like it is a painting to view,” I growl. “My love does not exist for you! My love is for my master!” My voice reverberates like hers did. The images move as if pushed away by a gust of wind. “You don’t understand. You don’t see. You just want!”
Olexandrya says nothing.
I start to pull my hands apart. But there’s something there. Something that my hands won’t let go of.
I think of the silence after I’d cast Heaven Ascent against her. That gray world.
This makes sense to me now. The Olexandrya I’m seeing before me isn’t her. It’s her soul given form. Which means the only reason I’m here… I open my hands.
In my hands is gold. A small speck of fire. A flame frozen in the moment of ignition.
“Why?” I gasp. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not talking about your love for your master,” Olexandrya says. “I’m not talking about your Heaven Ascent.”
The dark closes in around us like a shrinking veil.
“When you cast your final attack in that courtyard. You did hurt me.” She lets go of the white with one hand and gestures to her scarred chest. “That was you. I survived because Pepper managed to heal me. It cost her a bit of her sense, though.”
“I…”
“But you survived, too. We were trapped together in that time seal for an hour of real time. Dying together. Do you remember that?”
I can’t. I remember swooping down at her, a sea of golden flames behind me. And I remember waking in that tent naked.
“You said something. You asked me if I would remember.” Olexandrya takes the white with both hands and holds it out to me. “I think that’s love. Not for your master, but for yourself. A desire to remain. To be remembered. To live on in some way. And I cannot ignore that.”
I stare at the spark in my hands.
“If some infinitesimal part of you wants to live,” Olexandrya says, raising the white in both hands. “Shouldn’t you do it?”
The spark moves. Whether that’s to ignite or vanish into smoke, I don’t know. But something twists in my chest. The line has thickened again. Blood oozes from within it.
“Looks like time’s up,” Olexandrya says. “I guess you’ve made up your mind.”
I have a moment to register the wound on her chest, right next to the scar is a line mirroring mine.
“Wait!”
The world explodes around us. I’m face to face with Olexandrya and the blade slips through me.
I gasp, squeezing my eyes shut. Instinctively, I catch Olexandrya’s shoulder in an attempt to balance myself. But my feet can’t get any leverage. The blade is torn from me as I collapse backwards.
Olexandrya lands beneath me, arms supporting my weight.
I can’t breathe. My stomach is boiling and strangely cold at once. Is that blood? The soul? I writhe, gritting my teeth. The dagger lands nearby, clattering on the ground.
“You…” I choke on the word, trying to will my thoughts into being. “Why?” It doesn’t come out right. But she’s blurring in my sight, becoming less of a person and more splotches before me.
Red. It blooms just below the binding at Olexandria’s chest. A gash opening in her stomach. A wound matching mine. Wait. What? But the soul cleaver was supposed to…
“It didn’t work,” Olexandrya rasps, folding over me with a groan. “Looks like we’re done for… Aerida.”
No. Damn it. No. Not now!
I lurch forward, ignoring the pain bursting in my core, and thrust my open palm against Olexandrya’s stomach. But my mana doesn’t move. I can’t even enunciate the words to cast a spell.
Bodies rush into view.
“Heal her!” someone calls. “Hurry!”
“Why didn’t it work?”
Olexandrya is pulled backward and I collapse to the ground. I stare at the shifting gray above as people converge around her.
“Let me through!”
A flash of blue bursts from within the and something burns in my chest. I can hardly move. I can just angle my head enough to watch the gash in my chest close into a dark scab. Then I close my eyes.
For a moment, I see him. My master hovers at the edge of my mind. His face is obscured by gathering fog. But there’s a pure sensation. Disappointment.
“Have it your way.” His voice is quiet and deliberate. “You have failed me.:
I don’t dream. I just linger in that judgement.
When I do wake up, I’m still on my back. But I’ve been moved. And someone’s given me a blanket. Something soft shifts beneath me when I move.
I sit up abruptly. I’m in a bed in a small room. The walls are wooden, and a window allows sunlight to spill across them. Before me are Rakel and Pepper. Beyond them is another bed. Olexandrya is in that bed.
“Well, awake she’s now,” Pepper says.
“Talk normal!” Rakel snaps.
“I can’t! My brains messed all up!”
I stare at the two of them. It’s almost identical to my first awakening in their camp. Where are we now? How much time has passed?
I raise a hand to my chest, finding the rough scabbed skin between my breasts.
“I haven’t failed you,” I say under my breath. “Have I?”
“Say. What do you gonna do now?” Pepper asks, leaning towards me. She pokes at one of my horns as she does it.
I remember Olexandrya’s words about Pepper’s healing costing her sense. Does she not know how to cast a spell? Is it similar to my soul magic? I narrow my eyes at the woman.
“I don’t understand you,” I say, turning away from her.
“What will you do?” Rakel asks. “The Soul Cleaver didn’t work. Aluerme says Drya’s soul refused it. That means you got what you want…”
“What I want?”
“I let you won’t,” Pepper says. She has steel in her eyes. “Heal again again.”
Rakel massages the bridge of her nose.
“You’re the demon lord’s perfect tool,” she says dryly. “You just have to die and you take Drya down with you. The only thing we can do is keep healing you two. We’ll do everything in our power to stop you from dying.”
I raise my hands, and both women flinch.
“Ascent she’ll cast Heaven,” Pepper says, grabbing my horn and pulling my head to the side.
I glare at her.
“That’s another option, I suppose,” Rakel says. “You may be able to kill the both of us with your Heaven Ascent.”
“The two of you?”
“Lost party kicked us out the coalition.”
I generally understand that. Aluerme doesn’t see Olexandrya’s value in this state, therefore, she’s severed the rotten limb. These three are on their own.
There’s a faint rumble outside. I glance at the window and see a cloud of dust.
“We are literally at your mercy,” Rakel says. “So make up your mind now. What will you do?”
I yank my head free of Pepper’s grasp and look past her at Olexandrya.
Only one of the images I saw in all of her nonsense really stuck with me. Those masked figures with their thunderous spears and a voice begging for mercy. Was that it? Her life cut short so simply? I can’t stop it from recurring in my mind.
It scares me. It reminds me of my own near death in that courtyard. I’m buried in that final feeling, the one that Olexandrya had pointed so plainly at.
I didn’t want to disappear. I didn’t want to be forgotten.
If a part of me does want to live, what would that entail? Have I not given everything to my master? What would he think of this? He would want me to die, of course. My death destroys his greatest enemy.
But… That spark. It’s in me, even if I can’t feel it. Maybe it’s drowned out by Olexandrya’s soul. A candle competing with a bonfire.
‘Burn, Aerida.’
Have I not burned enough? Have I not given enough? I sacrificed what I thought was everything I had, and I am still here.
I find myself staring at Olexandrya’s peaceful expression.
“I don’t want to die,” I mumble, pressing my fingers against the scab.
Rakel’s eyes widen.
Another rumble. This time it’s accompanied by a deep bellow.
“You’re saying live,” Pepper says. “Our side you’re on?”
“I didn’t say anything about sides,” I say, leaning towards the window. My blanket falls away. “What is going on out there?”
Outside, I see a destroyed village. A massive spider collides with a tower, knocking it over.
“Oh,” Rakel says. “It’s been rampaging for a while now. I should probably go kill it. I’m not sure if I can, though.”
“Village abandoned. No spider kill people.”
“What do you want, then?” Rakel asks. “If you don’t want to die?”
I lower my hand from my chest and look at her over my shoulder.
“I’d like some clothes.”